Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Any idea what glitter man was rabbiting about? It wasn’t a Stop the Oil stunt

Some new bunch called People Demand Democracy. According to the BBC, they've released a statement saying that they'll keep committing acts of civil disobedience until they get their own way.

Abers has their actual aims in the Starmer thread.

They sound like they want to be the Just Stop Oil or Fathers 4 Justice of the PR movement.

JSO would, at least, not have used microplastics to make a point.

From a speech at Conference Fringe by the redoubtable Ann Black. Posted without comment, as it speaks for itself.

Hello, I’m Ann Black. I’m in my 21st year on the NEC, ten years in government, ten years in opposition, and I can tell you that government is always better. During that time I’ve been called Hard Left, a Blairite stooge, and everything in between.

I’d like a lot of things: properly funded social care before I’m as old as my mother; ending the two-child benefit cap; and stop punishing people who happen to be unemployed or fleeing war or persecution.

To get all these things we not only need to elect a Labour government – which is not a done deal – we need to keep Labour in government.

Five years is just the start, and we cannot risk the most vicious rightwing Tory party in living memory getting back and unpicking all our work all over again.

That means electoral reform as a first term priority. If we’d had proportional representation in 1992 Neil Kinnock would have been prime minister and the railways would never have been privatised. If we’d had PR in 2010 we could have avoided the pain of austerity. If we’d had PR in 2015 the divisive Brexit vote and everything that followed might never have happened.

The late great Robin Cook said that parties in power never change the system because they think they don’t need to.* And when they lose, they have no power to change it. We should have learned that lesson after 1997 – let’s not make the same mistake again

I have a great deal of respect for Ann Black, and that message reinforces it.

On canvassing for Labour, seen elsewhere:

Anyone who calls themselves "Big [name]" online is pretty much definitely a cunt.

Funnily enough, the line below has been excised by Alan, who is a moderator.

Boiler wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 3:59 pm Snip ... seen elsewhere:

No links to the forum? That renders these posts pretty pointless.

Besides, if it is a hive of cuntery, I quite fancy a fortnight's argumentative sojourn over there.

Possibly if not likely an outlier poll-wise. But bloody hell - knocking on the door of 50% and THIRTY points clear

https://www.threads.net/@uk.political.n ... BiNWFlZA==

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/de ... 7d32&ei=11

EDIT: also, poll was commissioned by GB News for extra chuckles

The joint Tory/Reform vote in that poll is still 30 percent. If Sunak personally stuck a cattle prod up their arses, BlueKIP would still be polling a quarter of the electorate.

Can politicians like Rachel Reeves please stop putting out books? Nobody seriously thinks you've written them yourself. No good can come of it.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 9:30 pm Can politicians like Rachel Reeves please stop putting out books? Nobody seriously thinks you've written them yourself. No good can come of it.

Why wouldn’t Reeves have written these books herself? Many MPs have been prolific authors, Disraeli, Roy Jenkins, Winston Churchill, Nadine Dorries.

With no female chancellor of the exchequer in history.

Maybe she thought it worthwhile to put out a book on female economists.

Seems it’s more a proofreading error.

Youngian wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 6:41 am

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 9:30 pm Can politicians like Rachel Reeves please stop putting out books? Nobody seriously thinks you've written them yourself. No good can come of it.

Why wouldn’t Reeves have written these books herself? Many MPs have been prolific authors, Disraeli, Roy Jenkins, Winston Churchill, Nadine Dorries.

I think she probably has more of a day job than they had at the time. At least I hope she does.

Cut & paste is known for being easily busted. Essentially, we can take a whole tract, or portions thereof, and Google them. A match will show within nanoseconds, as we all know.

The naivety is more concerning than anything else.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 7:02 pm

Youngian wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 6:41 am

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 9:30 pm Can politicians like Rachel Reeves please stop putting out books? Nobody seriously thinks you've written them yourself. No good can come of it.

Why wouldn’t Reeves have written these books herself? Many MPs have been prolific authors, Disraeli, Roy Jenkins, Winston Churchill, Nadine Dorries.

I think she probably has more of a day job than they had at the time. At least I hope she does.

Also in the case of Jenkins I believe that he wrote a lot of his books after he left office or when he was out of office.

Wasn’t aware of the story as no one referenced it. ‘Reeves will plagiarise Liam Byrne,’ will be Greg Hands’s next Tweet.

Rachel Reeves has said she holds her hands up and acknowledges making mistakes in her new book about female economists after she faced allegations of plagiarism.
The shadow chancellor admitted on Thursday that some sentences in her book, The Women Who Made Modern Economics, were “not properly referenced in the bibliography”.
An examination by the Financial Times of the book found more than 20 examples of passages from other sources that appeared to be either lifted wholesale, or reworked with minor changes, without acknowledgment. https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... economists

In other words...

Evening Standard reporter on to the big issues here. The Tory Trump Card is... appointing Claire Coutihno as chancellor.

I think, on balance, Labour will be happy to go with "Tory chaos".